DUBLIN (RNS) After 32 years as an interior designer, Patricia Wojnar went back to school for a master’s degree in bereavement studies, a hot commodity in Ireland’s “post-Catholic” economy that features growing markets for wedding and funeral officiants who aren’t associated with the scandal-scarred Catholic Church.

(RNS) No one wants to talk about death at the dinner table, says Lizzy Miles, a social worker in Columbus, Ohio. But sometimes people need to talk about the “taboo” topic. Hence the birth of “death cafes.”